


Remember My Nightmares

by satan_quaff



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: 13 Reasons Why/ Justin's P.O.V, Bring justice to Justin Foley, Bryce Walker is an asshole, Gen, Justin Foley Monologue, Justin Foley centric, Justin Foley deserved better, Justin Foley is not an asshole, Justin Foley is precious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 08:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10658673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satan_quaff/pseuds/satan_quaff
Summary: Everybody misses Hannah. Hannah this, Hannah that. And it had all began with Justin. That one goddamn photo that had ruined his chance at a relationship with this amazing woman. But nobody cared about that, did they? Oh no. It was all empathy to Hannah. Justin was just a pervert who couldn't help himself. But what if that was exactly what he was trying to do?





	Remember My Nightmares

Sometimes, he didn’t even know why he tried. Sometimes, he just wanted to give up.

Hannah had done that, hadn’t she? Given up? But he didn’t blame her. Nobody could. Nobody had the right to do what they did. Nobody had the right to blame her for what other people had done to her. Nobody was _allowed_ to blame her for the cruelty of the world.

So nobody would blame Justin, right? Wrong.

How could he expect other people— his so called ‘friends’ who didn’t even pick up his phone calls when he was near dead desperate— to accept his choices? To even accept him? _It’s all fake_ , he had realized. _It’s all bloody fake_. The friendships, the relationships, even the goddamn school itself.

It had slowly uncoiled around him, and then fallen completely. The ‘bonds’, the ‘bro codes’. Everything. And it had all started with him.

Sometimes, he thought that taking those pictures of Hannah would have saved her. He knew for sure that it would have. But if he could go back, he wouldn’t change it. _Survival of the fittest_ , they had said. So that’s what he had done. Survived. Because every predator needs a prey, and if he couldn’t be the predator, he wouldn’t be the prey either. So he made Hannah the prey. He decided that his time was over. He was done being the victim.

Once he put on his letterman jacket, his personal life faded away. Once the tiger was placed over his chest, his fears vanished. He became a different person entirely. The Justin Foley who was abandoned by his mother at every turn, the broken boy who craved love, it all disappeared. And what did he become instead? An arrogant jock who toyed with emotions as if they were Kleenex.

And he enjoyed it.

He didn’t have to care about anything other than basketball and girls and getting Cs in his classes. Opposed to being isolated, he would rather hurt somebody than relinquish in the pain that he felt every time he looked at his mother’s face, every time he even _thought_ about home, every goddamn second of his life.

He had craved love for so long, he had forgotten what it felt like. All he felt was the aching in chest that implored him to find it. Anywhere, in any source. And he thought he had found it in his unrelated brother, Bryce. He had stooped down that low. _That_ was his definition of love. Whenever he thought back to it, the days he just gave up his dignity for his ‘brother’, the days he had to look at Bryce with entreating eyes so that he could be pardoned and provided shelter, he felt sick to his core. _Had I really been that desperate?_ , was the only he question he could ask himself for days. But he had the answer. He had the answer at the back of his mind all along that he just kept pushing and thrusting back. Of course he was that desperate. Where else would he find this love that his heart longed for? In Jessica? The girl who didn’t even understand why he had made the choices he did?

At a point he was wrong. Dead wrong. To let Bryce just— _violate_ her. But what else was he supposed to do? He needed a shelter. He needed money. He needed clothes. Bryce was the only one who could provide all that. And Justin had been selfish in that moment. _So selfish_ . Thinking only about himself and not the woman who was locked up in the room— disorientated and utterly incapable of protecting herself. _What had he been thinking?_ Countless nights he would wake up screaming and thrashing in his bed, unable to remove the image of Bryce entering the room and locking the room behind him. Unable to block out the screams of help Jessica was shouting.

Unable to unsee the image of himself sitting outside the room, his hands by his sides, useless and worthless.

That was all that he had felt. Useless and worthless. From the moment his biological father had decided to leave him and his mother when he was just a child. _How can he leave us? Does he not care? Are we that insignificant to him?,_ were the only questions he had asked his mom for years. But his mother had never answered him in words. Only actions.

She had made him realise that not only was he insignificant to his father, but also to her. His own mother had felt like he didn't deserve to be treated as a human or as something that was worthwhile. She had treated him like a rag doll, pushing him aside when something better came along. Something better, as in her crappy boyfriends. The boyfriends who abused her own flesh and blood. The same boyfriends who choked her son and she didn't do a thing about it. She just watched. Even when Justin managed to croak out a throaty “Mom?”, she had just looked away.

She had walked away from her son. Turned her back to him. Even when he looked at her with his pleading, _begging_ eyes. _Take me back_ , they said. But she didn't.

So he did what he had to survive. It was wrong, and he was well aware of it, but he had a right to be selfish. If nobody was going to be selfless for him, then he would help himself. He would pick up his jagged pieces by himself. He would stitch himself when the same pieces cut him. He would do it all alone.

He would do it over and over and over until there was nothing left to pick.

**Author's Note:**

> Productive criticism is welcome! Also, since this is a monologue there will be no new chapters.


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